Night Piece
by Scordatura
Summary: Mello's eyes were trained keenly on every detail in the picture, lips parted slightly as though he was unsure whether to compliment her or stay silent. He raised a hand to gently grab the side of the sketchbook, as though he needed to make sure it was real. (Rated T for some swearing.)


A/N: Another Death Note one-shot. This idea struck me, and I thought it sounded cute, plus Mello and Linda are an interesting pair. And a happy birthday to Mello!

-/-\-|-/-\-

_Night Piece_

His bare feet traveled softly across the wooden floor boards, allowing him to sneak down the hallway without waking anyone. As he approached his own room, a cold draft fell on him from the side, causing him to draw back and suck in cold air through his teeth at the sudden pinpricks of ice.

The door to his right was slightly ajar, allowing a frigid breeze into the hallway to fill the rest of the orphanage. With a scowl on his face, he gently pushed it open. The room was adorned with multiple canvases, both blank and colored with miniature worlds. Bottles of paint decorated shelves around an empty bed where a few sketchbooks sat, as well as a myriad of paint brushes, pens, and pencils. A few pictures dotted the walls, but it was too dark for Mello to identify what each one was supposed to be.

As another breeze went through his hair and loose clothes, he spotted Linda sitting in front of her window which she'd pushed wide open. There was a sketching tablet on her lap, and her hand went back and forth, dragging a long pencil delicately across the page. A thick blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, and beneath that were her fuzzy, light blue pajamas, fending off any type of chilly air. Her hair was out of its usual clip, curtaining her face with light strands and blocking her view of anything coming at her from the side. Which is probably why she jumped when Mello inquired, "Can't you close that window, or are you trying to freeze everyone in the house?"

Linda turned, eyes wide with surprise as she looked at the window, her tablet, and then back to his sour expression. "I couldn't sleep," she explained, drawing her knees up to her chest and keeping her sketchbook close.

"I don't care if you couldn't sleep," Mello snapped in irritation, crossing his arms and trying to convince himself the action was for the sake of looking menacing and not to rub warmth back into his arms. "I want to know why you have to keep that window open. Or does cold winter air help you sleep?"

Linda narrowed her eyes angrily, and Mello could see her face go a darker shade in the moonlight reflecting off the snowy ground outside and shining into her dark room.

"I was drawing, and I needed the window open," the girl answered in a clipped voice before adding almost disdainfully, "I was drawing something outside by the way. Kind of hard to look through a frosted window pane."

Mello smirked, not too surprised by her snide retaliation. It was clear to him after only a few encounters with the girl, Linda's tolerance for him had grown to be short to none. Which was all right with him, because quite seldom would any other child in the orphanage stand up to him. The only one he could really have an argument with was Matt, though those never lasted too long because Matt would always be engrossed in a video game. It was during these fights, Mello would stalk away as soon as it became unclear whether Matt was fighting with the blond or with the enemy lines on the screen before him.

Linda on the other hand could last long enough to give a few harsh remarks, though they never really stung Mello that much. She'd then deem the boy a lost cause and return to her painting when smirks were all she received .

Mello didn't have much to say to her reasoning on why the window was open, except that she should close it for the final time. Linda had returned to her drawing, not bothering with the window and ignoring Mello completely. The boy briefly considered stomping over and slamming it shut on her, but he stayed where he was, too stubborn to have to do it himself. The girl on the window seat looked up from her tablet, eyes narrowing before she sighed, "You know if you said 'please', I'd close it."

Mello looked indignant. What did she think he was? Four? He rolled his eyes, muttering, "Why am I still standing here freezing my ass off? I told you to close the window about three times, now. Do you not feel the cold? Here's some info for you: It's freakin' annoying! I can't feel my feet, so close the stupid window already!"

Linda pulled the fat blanket tighter around herself, giving Mello a suspiciously smug look. "Is it so hard to just crawl back under the covers of your own bed?"

"Yeah, because now my room's probably frozen over, as well as every other one in the orphanage," Mello shot back, now too cold to stop his arms from trembling.

Linda exhaled in irritation, reaching out into the night air and grabbing the handle of the window, pulling the icy glass shut before shooting a glare at Mello.

"Thank you," Mello said, though he packed so much disgust into it, there wasn't any room for sincerity. "Finish your drawing tomorrow or something."

"Not if I can't open the window without you pouncing in here like a guard dog," Linda muttered, rising to her feet and moving to close the large sketchbook.

"What were you drawing?" Mello inquired, and he mentally shot himself for sounding more curious than cold and demanding. It didn't matter to him what she'd been drawing. What mattered is why she needed to let winter into the building to do so.

Linda faltered from flipping previous pages over the one she'd been working on. She looked startled at first by the blond's sudden interest but soon took on suspicious stare. "So you can lose your temper and say it's stupid and there was no reason to have the window open for it?"

Mello opened his mouth to snap something, but Linda sent him a look that said, 'You're only proving my point.'. The boy didn't move, keeping his scowling face fixated on Linda until very slowly, his feet shuffled forward on the chilled floorboards. He told himself it was all for the sake of proving the girl wrong. He would not freak out and yell at her when he saw the picture. It wasn't because he was actually curious or anything dumb like that.

Linda looked a little reluctant at first when Mello came to stand beside her, but slowly lifted the pages away from her drawing, mouth taking on a firm line as she waited for Mello's reaction. The blond-haired boy looked over the artist's work-in-progress, blinking once as his cool detachment faded for a few moments. It was a picture of the night sky just outside the window. Linda had captured and transferred it onto the piece of paper through careful strokes and bolder lines that caressed soft grays. Pinpricks of light dotted the page, mapping out constellations breaking through the wispy, dark clouds. In the corner of the paper was an almost half moon, just as pale and ghoulish as the one in the sky, allowing them the light to see Linda's creation.

Linda's gaze traveled over to Mello's face, slowly widening at the boy's reaction. His eyes were trained keenly on every detail in the picture, lips parted slightly as though he was unsure whether to compliment her or stay silent. He raised a hand to gently grab the side of the sketchbook, as though he needed to make sure it was real. His expression of awe lasted only a few seconds longer before his fascinated blue eyes met Linda's and his usual countenance of irritation returned, throwing painful disappointment onto the young artist.

"It's alright," he sighed, dropping his hand like it had never meant to travel up to the drawing and had moved there by itself. "I mean, it's mostly black. It kind of takes over the whole page."

Linda looked down at her feet, trying hard not to let her despair show. She'd hoped, for just a quick moment, she'd uncovered a side of Mello few were able to meet. As it turned out, her picture was just another usual, tedious encounter in Mello's life at Wammy's House.

"The clouds are really dark, too," Mello added, turning and stalking away. "Like it's about to snow."

Linda didn't move, continuing to study her feet and the floorboards.

"Plus, it's not even finished," Mello stated firmly, already in the doorway, leaning tiredly against the doorframe.

Linda looked up indignantly, his comment sparking what little fight he'd extinguished but the blond interrupted her, saying, "If you finished it up for something, then maybe it'd look..." He trailed off, looking up at the ceiling for the right word. "...Well, better than just 'alright'." And with that, he was out the door and down the cold hallway.

The young artist stared down at her picture, unable to toss it aside, yet wanting nothing more than to do just that. A sudden realization then dawned on her, and she slowly raised her head, a smile playing on her mouth. Holding her artwork close, she tiptoed over to the window to open it once more.

-/-\-|-/-\-

Mello quickly slid between the warm blankets and the mattress of his bed, burying his face in the plump pillow that had regained its shape after he'd left.

"Okay, that was the longest piss in the history of mankind," came Matt's groggy voice from his own bed across the room.

Mello snorted, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. "I wasn't in the bathroom the whole time. Linda's window was open, so I snapped at her a bit about how she was trying to freeze everyone in the building."

A noncommittal mumble was all he heard from Matt, and he continued, "Turns out she was drawing the sky. She showed it to me, too."

"How'd it look?" his friend inquired with a yawn.

"I told her all the black took up the whole page and made it look like it was about to snow."

There was silence for a few minutes until Mello heard his friend once again. "Mel, you like black. You like the weather and the sky before it's about to snow, too."

In the darkness, Mello smiled. "That's right."


End file.
